“I Am the Walrus” by The Beatles

"I Am the Walrus" turned up in 1967 on the flip side of "Hello, Goodbye" and on the Magical Mystery Tour records, and in the TV film the Beatles mime it on a deserted airfield. John Lennon wrote it, credited as ever to Lennon and McCartney, partly to baffle the listeners who had started picking over Beatles lyrics like scholars, with two acid trips and Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter" feeding the fever dream.

George Martin arranged the madness, piling on violins, cellos, horns and clarinet, and the Mike Sammes Singers, a 16-voice studio choir, chant nonsense and whoop and shriek on cue. With the single and the EP holding the top two places in Britain that December, the song sat at number one and number two at the same time. The BBC banned it anyway, over one saucy line.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.